Abstract
Nineteenth-century Māori musings regarding Magna Carta are rare, so rare there is only one account of such musings being articulated. Kamau’s chapter focuses on a speech given in 1855 by the Māori leader, Aperahama Taonui and his articulation of his “Mekana Tata.” In this speech, Taonui sought to establish tino rangatiratanga as the constitutional foundation of New Zealand’s common law. His contribution to New Zealand’s constitutional history has largely been ignored. In some ways, however, his Mekana Tata was more of a threat to the fragile early settler government than any other Māori movement of the nineteenth century.
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Kamau, L. (2017). Mekana Tata: Magna Carta and the Political Thought of Aperahama Taonui. In: Winter, S., Jones, C. (eds) Magna Carta and New Zealand. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58439-3_8
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